


Please Stand By

by kikiwrites



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Martin doesn't leave the lonely, Misuse of Beholding Avatar Powers (The Magnus Archives), No Apocalypse, Not Really?, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), WandaVision AU, because jonny sims won't give us one, but maybe vague spoilers for some themes of wandavision at least, jon does not take it well, lots of angst before the comfort, no beta we die like our hopes of tma ending happily, no knowledge of wandavision needed, no major spoilers though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29966271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikiwrites/pseuds/kikiwrites
Summary: Jon isn't ready to face a world without Martin. When he arrives at the Safehouse, he makes sure that he doesn't have to. Not yet. But not all is as it seems in Jon's idyllic corner of the world, and the Spider decides they must set things right.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Please Stand By

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello and welcome to the WandaVision-inspired AU that no one asked for! Buckle up folks because it's time for some angst! Not without a healthy dose of comfort and a happy ending though, who do you think I am? This is my first time writing anything multichapter in a long time so it'll be a fun time for all involved. I'll try to update once or twice a week! Content warnings will be at the beginning of each chapter!
> 
> CWs for Chapter 1:  
> Spiders (and the death of said spiders)  
> Feelings of anxiety/depression

_Look at me and tell me what you see._

The fog lapped at Jon’s heels, threatening to drag him back into its frigid embrace. He ached to give in, let himself be shrouded in the cold and the numbness and the terrifying calm. 

_I see..._

It would’ve been so easy. So much easier than every agonizing step he took away. He didn’t want to return to the real world. He wasn’t ready.

_I can’t… I’m sorry Jon._

The words echoed in his ears, over and over and over. The way his voice had grown more distant. The way the fog had taken him from sight. Taken him from Jon.

He lost him. 

And now he was leaving him behind.

He wasn’t ready for a world without Martin.

………….

_Five days later_

Jon awoke to the squeal of the tea kettle. He stretched, taking in the warmth of the sunlight making stripes across the bed. The luxury of a lazy morning wasn’t something Jon had been able to indulge in since well before University. Since arriving at Daisy’s safehouse though, it seemed he and Martin would have a chance to make up for lost time.

Wrapped up in one of Martin’s sweaters, Jon shuffled to the kitchen. Martin stood at the counter, whisking something in one of the chipped bowls they’d found in the cupboards. Jon wrapped his arms around him from behind. He didn’t need to see Martin’s face to know he was smiling. 

“Morning love,” Jon whispered.

“Morning,” Martin said back, low and soft. “Tea?”

“Of course.”

“Going to have to let me go first.”

Jon pressed his face into Martin’s shoulder. “Hmmm tea can wait.”

Martin laughed, and Jon could’ve listened to that sound forever. Days ago, he’d been sure he had lost Martin for good. He never thought he’d get to have these little moments. A part of him was still waiting to wake up back in the realm of nightmares they’d fled from. He knew they weren’t safe yet, not by a long shot. Any number of things could take these moments of quiet joy from him at any second. The first few days, he hadn’t been able to let Martin out of his sight without panicking that his love had dissolved back to mist. Now that they both felt a bit more solid, he was learning to savor the small, golden moments as long as he had them. 

“Have you heard from Basira yet?”

The mention of Basira was like a shot of ice water in Jon’s veins. He forced his voice to stay neutral as he said, “Oh, no, nothing yet.”

Martin wiggled out of Jon’s arms and turned to face him, frowning. “You don’t seem very worried.”

“I trust Basira.” Jon couldn’t help the tension that spread through his shoulders even as he tried to reassure Martin. “I’m sure when things have settled down, she’ll get in touch.” 

“But that’s just it,” Martin went on. Jon bit the inside of his cheek. “If she hasn’t called yet, then things _haven’t_ settled down. Doesn’t that worry you?”

“It- it does,” Jon admitted, fighting to keep his voice steady. “But I just. She’s fine. It’s going to be fine.” _It has to be fine. It has to be._

Martin nodded, unconvinced but not willing to push the issue further. The look of concern lingered, focused on Jon instead. “How are you doing without statements?”

“Okay, it seems,” Jon smiled. “I think maybe after what happened with Peter Lukas I might be…” he wrinkled his nose, “ _full_ for a while.”

Martin furrowed his brow at that. Jon knew Martin was convinced he was lying and trying not to worry him. A fair assessment given their past but… The truth was, Jon hadn’t needed a statement, not since the first day-

_Look at me, and tell me what you see_

_I see… I can’t… I’m sorry, Jon._

Jon shook his head, forcing the echoed thoughts from his mind. They had no place in the newfound calm of his life with Martin.

It was too soon to say if he’d escaped the Eye’s grasp. Maybe Peter Lukas’ statement had been enough to sustain him for days. Like all the good things that had come to him in the past few days, Jon was determined not to question it. 

Martin squeezed Jon’s shoulder. “You’ll tell me if you do get… hungry though.” 

“Of course, love- ah!”

Jon jumped back. Martin looked around frantically for the source of Jon’s panic, certain that their time was up and the nightmares had caught up with them- before landing on the culprit: a small spider crawling across the counter. 

Martin couldn’t help but laugh in relief. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

Jon backed away further, hands shaking by his sides. “Kill it.”

Martin moved to grab a mug from the cupboard. “I’m just going to take it outside and let it go-” 

“ _Please_ just kill it,” Jon begged. “if you let it go, it’ll just come right back in, and then there’ll be more-”

“Alright, alright, if it’ll help you relax.” Reluctantly, Martin squished the spider and tossed its remains into the garbage. “Happy?”

“Yes,” Jon said sheepishly. “Thank you.”

Martin rolled his eyes. “I knew we were likely to find spiders in an old cabin like this, but jeez, you’d think they rolled out the welcome mat just for you.” That, Martin realized quickly, was the wrong thing to say. “I mean. Like how dogs smell fear, maybe spiders- nope, that’s worse. It’s weird. How many spiders we’ve found. Not supernatural weird. Just. Normal, mundane weird.”

“Right,” Jon said, still looking quite shaken. “Normal, mundane weird.”

……………………..

After just over two weeks with no word from Basira, Martin couldn’t keep pushing his worry aside. He felt like he might be wearing a track into the floor with all the anxious pacing he found himself doing. 

“What do you think could be happening that would keep her quiet this long?”

Jon shook his head. “I don’t know, maybe there’s an investigation? Those things usually take a long time, don’t they?”

“Well, yes, sure, but that wouldn’t keep Basira from just giving us a quick call that she’s _alive_ at least, would it?” 

“I’m sure she’s fine-”

“How? How are you so sure?” Martin snapped. As much as he loved Jon, there were times he still made Martin want to pull his hair out. “After everything we’ve been through, how can you be sure that there hasn’t been some weird, supernatural bullshit that’s got her caught up in it now?”

“I think the second she signed the contract with the institute she was pretty caught up-”

“That’s not what I mean!” Martin let out a long sigh. “Look, I don’t mean to fuss, but I just don’t understand how you seem to be so- so calm about this!”

“I know. I know. I am worried Martin, it’s just… well. I-I guess there’s nothing I can do from here, is there? So what’s the use in worrying?”

Martin gave him a flat stare. “You can talk like a self-help book all you want, but you don’t expect me to think you actually believe that, do you?”

“You know me far too well.”

“Then tell me what’s really going on.”

“I don’t… I don’t know, alright?” Jon slumped forward, rubbing his temples. “It just feels like there’s so much to worry about that I’m just… numb to all of it. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah. I suppose it does.” Martin ran his hands down his face. “I’m going to go for a walk down to the village, alright? I think I need some fresh air.” 

Jon nodded. Martin knew Jon desperately wanted to go with him, and a part of him wanted to ask him to if only to take that look of worry off his face. But they also both needed time to themselves given how little space the cabin provided. Besides, Martin had a mission this time. One he didn’t necessarily want Jon along for. 

The village was only a half hour walk from the cabin. Martin was still familiarizing himself with the various shops. He’d popped into a few on previous walks, sometimes with Jon, sometimes without. Wherever he went, the eyes of the locals seemed to follow him. At first, he’d been afraid it was some spooky trick of the eye, but when a bushy-bearded old man had approached him and Jon and said _you’re not from around here, where’d you come from?_ Martin was reassured that the looks that followed him were only those of curious small-town residents. 

He found what he was looking for, the one pay phone in town, just outside the grocery store. It was a long shot, he knew, but he had to at least try to get in touch with Basira. Maybe the cellular reception was bad in the cabin. Or the whole town. Maybe whatever supernatural stuff had gotten to them all made cell phones work as well for them as computers did for real statements. Whatever the case, Martin had to try. 

He dialed Basira’s number. No answer, just static. No option to leave a message, just static. He tried again to the same result. Odd. He hadn’t used a payphone in ages. Perhaps the static was normal? With his luck, nothing was normal, least of all static. 

Something in the back of his mind told him something was very wrong, but… maybe he could understand Jon’s apparent lack of worry. Because yes, he _knew_ something had to be wrong, but aside from his worrying about Basira and both of their nightmares and general jumpiness at most things unexpected, this was the calmest his life had been in years. Living a normal life with Jon was _good._ Better than he ever thought he could have. Call him a coward, but if something was wrong… he didn’t exactly want to seek it out. 

In the corner of the phone booth, a plump spider perched in its tightly woven web. Martin gave it a little smile. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “Jon can’t make me smush you here. Just stay away from the cabin up the hill, alright? Tell all your friends that too.” 

The spider twiddled its arms. Martin would take that as an affirmative. 

Martin left the phone booth behind. He popped into the tea shop he and Jon had been to on their first tentative outing, where the old man had asked them their whereabouts. The shop was nothing fancy, but it had a rustic charm that put a smile on Martin’s face. It never seemed to be overly crowded either, a small mercy he was incredibly grateful for. 

A waiter approached him at the counter and gave him a weak smile. His eyes were sunken deep in dark circles. The poor man looked exhausted, and Martin said as much, asking if he was alright. 

“Been getting that a lot today,” the waiter said, words slurring together. “Haven’t been able to get a good rest in days now. I’m not the only one though. Seems like everyone’s been tossing and turning.”

Martin looked around. The few other customers and staff all looked similarly exhausted. Puffy eyes, shoulders slumped, clutching pastries and steaming mugs. One woman in the corner looked like she had fully fallen asleep on her newspaper. Martin must’ve been the only fully awake person in the place. 

“Anyway what can I get you?”

“Oh, just a-”

_Click._

Martin jumped at the familiar sound. In the pocket of the waiter’s apron… it couldn’t have been.

“Is that a tape recorder?”

“What?” The waiter flinched. “This? Damnit, I thought I’d gotten rid of it, someone must’ve snuck it back in my pocket. Sorry-”

Martin backed away. “I’m sorry, I think… I just remembered there’s somewhere I need to be. Very soon. I, ah. I’ll come back another time, promise.”

He bolted from the shop as gracefully as he could, which was to say, in the most awkward fashion imaginable. His heart pounded as he began the half hour trek back to the safe house. A tape recorder. There hadn’t been so much as a trace of one in weeks. He was just starting to think they’d finally escaped the Eye, but there it was, plain as ever. Foolish of him to think they could ever get away. Maybe it should have been _more_ concerning that they hadn’t seen tape recorders yet. What was so significant about that moment that the Eye wanted to listen in? 

Martin swung open the door. “Jon! Jon, I think we have a problem.”

Jon jumped to his feet. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

“I was at the diner, just getting a tea and the waiter. There was a tape recorder. It turned on. He said he didn’t know where it came from.”

“Oh god,” Jon gripped a hand in his hair. “I… did anything else happen, anything out of the ordinary?”  
“Aside from everyone else being dead tired on a Thursday afternoon? No. Nothing at all. I don’t understand why it came up.” 

Jon’s face went ashen. “We haven’t seen them for weeks. The Eye can’t be watching, it can’t.”

“Jon?” Martin took his hand to ground him. He was already getting shaky. “We’ve dealt with tape recorders before, right? This isn’t like some new entity or something.”

“But what if it is? Or what if it’s the Eye getting ready to come for us-“

“Hey, hey. I’m supposed to be the one jumping to worst-case scenarios.” He hated seeing Jon this panicked. Mostly because he never liked to see Jon upset, but also because Jon’s panic confirmed his own fear that this was capital-S Something. If Jon could keep a level head while he worried about Basira, he could keep them both grounded now.

“Now let’s think,” Martin said. “Is there anything that could’ve caused a tape recorder to just be there?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.” Jon squeezed his eyes shit right. “I mean, I know sometimes… sometimes if I’m ah, worried? Or care a lot about someone? The tape recorders will sometimes come up around them more?”

“And were you worried earlier?”

“I… I was. I was really worried.”

Martin couldn’t help but soften a bit at that. “You’re saying you made spooky tapes pop up around me because you were worried?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help but worry sometimes,” Jon said sheepishly. “I know we talked about needing alone time, and I’m working on the whole hovering thing, but… well obviously that’s not going well.

Martin felt relief come over him. He could handle Jon’s brand of spooky. He pulled Jon closer and folded him into his arms. “You’re allowed to worry Jon. That’s a perfectly okay way to feel, especially after everything. And if that’s all the tape recorder was, then I’m okay with that. Just maybe try texting next time?”

Jon pressed closer to Martin, finally starting to loosen his grip on his muscles. “I can’t exactly control when they pop up,” he started. “But. Yes. Texting. I’ll try."

That night, Martin couldn’t fall asleep. He kept replaying the day in his mind. The one detail that he kept coming back to, the one thing that didn’t fit. If Jon made the tape recorder appear when he was worried about Martin, then why did the waiter say he’d tried to get rid of it before?


End file.
